The Army is Getting Even Greener

I’m sorry it has taken me so long to get an update out. We got to Iraq on 4 October and we hit the ground running. We have been fixing trucks ever since we got here and working hard on getting our trucks fixed. We took over the trucks from the company we replaced and they left us with a ton of work to do. They were here for 15 months so maybe they just got lax toward the end but we only had 1/3 of our trucks we felt comfortable taking on the road. We have been spending some long days down at the maintenance shop trying to get things the way we like them. There has been no break in missions though so it has been difficult at times to have enough trucks ready for each mission. We are getting on top of things though and the pace should slow down soon.

We are stationed at COB Q-West as you might guess from our address. It is about 40 miles south of Mosul in Northern Iraq and it used to be an Iraqi air base. It is technically small as far camps go but what we have is spread over a large area. It’s a 20 minute walk to the chow hall so we certainly get our exercise. I’m staying with my buddy Gepford in a Containerized Housing Unit or CHU. Basically we have half of a 40’ shipping container for our living area. It’s much better than last time when we were in tents the whole year. The biggest problem with this base is there is a major water shortage. We only get 10 gallons of water every three days for showers and there is one porta-potty for every 35 guys. If the Army trucks got more than 2-3 miles per gallon they might call us “Green” and give us awards for stopping global warming.

We can receive mail now and it’s actually getting here pretty quickly depending on when flights come in. There is a small change from the address I had up before. It’s posted on the right of this page and I’ll put it here also for convenience.

Shipp, Kyle 8608

353^rd TC, COB Q-West

APO AE 09351

There are many more things to say and pictures to show but they will have to wait for another update. We have to hit the road again early tomorrow and they complain if we aren’t awake while we are driving.]

Enjoy the showers,

Kyle

"When the well is dry, we know the worth of water. "

- Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanac